Getaway: Rent in France for savings and local ambience

Wednesday

Apr 30, 2008 at 12:01 AMApr 30, 2008 at 5:53 AM

France can still be affordable despite the current unfavorable exchange rate. The trick is to rent a house or apartment. Generally known as "gites," vacation rentals are a time-honored tradition throughout France and, thanks to the Internet, easier than ever to access.

Christina Tree

France can still be affordable despite the current unfavorable exchange rate. The trick is to rent a house or apartment. Generally known as "gites," vacation rentals are a time-honored tradition throughout France and, thanks to the Internet, easier than ever to access.

I learned the hard way about the advantages of renting. As a frequent Paris visitor, I prided myself on being an aficionado of that city's many small, special and relatively inexpensive hotels.

On a flight from Boston, I told my seatmate how skillfully I had patched together a 10-day family reunion using several Parisian hotels. He described the apartment rental he was sharing with a few other students.

The enormity of my blunder sank in a few weeks later when we exchanged e-mails, comparing notes. His apartment with its splendid roof deck cost a fraction of what we paid for the hotels. Then there were the tabs for all the cafes where my family gathered because our hotel rooms were too small, and all the restaurants in which we dined because we did not have a kitchen to cook our own meals.

For last year's family trip, I tried an entirely new approach. At Charles de Gaulle Airport we boarded the fast TGV train south, snoozing the two hours until our stop at Angouleme, a small walled city known for its 12th century cathedral, a colorful public 19th century market and an elaborate museum devoted to "la Bande dessinee" (the comic strip).

In rural France, businesses still close for a two-hour lunch. Luckily, there's a good restaurant in Angouleme's train station. We arrived at 12:03, and the Eurocar rental office was already on its lunch break. Eventually three of us squeezed into a tiny, two-door, stick-shift Renault and drove 20 miles south, through increasingly lush countryside.

Angouleme is the capital of The Charente, an area of small villages and rural, rolling farm country north of Bordeaux and bordering the better- known Dordogne.

The small, picturesque farms are no longer profitable and antiquated old farmhouses are being sold off, snapped up as bargains by Brits, given the favorable exchange rate of the pound vs. euro.

"La Vieille Forge," the farmhouse apartment we found on a British Web site, featured a big old hearth in the living room and included a fully equipped country kitchen/dining area and two baths (one with washing machine) and two upstairs bedrooms, all for about $478 per week.

"It's Coo-Coo mating season" our British host, Diana Conheeney, explained cheerfully as we arrived at a farmyard filled with the fragrance of roses and the calls of Coo-Coo Birds. Diana and her husband, David Conheeney, are enthusiastic converts to The Charente, familiar with the weekly schedule of farmers' markets in surrounding towns as well as the hours of the local golf and tennis club, now owned by British expats named Peacock.

Given all the small questions that inevitably come with rural rentals ("Do you have matches?" "An iron?"), it was a plus to have English-speaking landlords. I had ample opportunity to use my fractured French in the local supermarket nearby and at the farmers' market beside the Byzantine cathedral in Perigueux, capital of the Dordogne and an easy drive. We feasted on fabulous and reasonably priced breads, cheeses and wine, on strawberries and asparagus.

Day by day we explored the farm paths that began at our door. Our challenge was to find our way to l'Abbaye Ste. Marie de Maumont, a nearby monastery with magnificent Gregorian chant. The neighboring farmer claimed that he had driven oxen along these paths right to the monastery. We rented bikes from our hosts but got bogged down wheeling them through cornfields, happily lost.

As our stick-shift skills driving the Renault increased, we ventured farther along narrow, curvy roads. The local sight-to-see was Aubterre-sur-Dronne, a truly beautiful medieval village clinging to a steep hillside above a sandy beach on the River Dronne. Its big attraction is a spooky 12th century monolithic church, a high-domed but dark cathedral-sized cave, with tombs dating to the sixth century.

We walked the narrow streets of the Dordogne village of Sarlat, sampling its foie gras, and climbed the steep Pilgrim's Staircase in Rocamadour, where carless streets are lined with 12th to 15th century buildings and capped by a turreted castle.

But as glorious as the Dordogne was, it was a relief to return to the less-touristy Charente, and to our farmhouse apartment - which progressively felt like our French home away from home.

Renting in Paris

"The apartment wasn't just a bargain, it was a big part of the way we experienced Paris" enthused Melrose, Mass., resident Richard Appleyard.

Agreed wife, Betty Appleyard, "We felt like we belonged. The woman in the patisserie knew just what we would order when we walked in the door."

Although widely traveled, the Appleyards had not been to France until Richard presented Betty with roundtrip tickets, a surprise retirement present.

Friends advised the couple to spend time in Paris, specifically in the 6th arrondissement, a lively Left Bank neighborhood within walking distance of most major sights. On the Web they booked a rental above Les Deux Magots, one of the oldest and most famous cafes in Paris. It seemed too good to be true. It was.

Two nights before departure an e-mail informed them that the apartment had been double booked. They could either have their deposit back or a less appealing-looking rental elsewhere.

"It was clearly a case of bait and switch," Richard still fumes. The good news is that he was quickly able to find promising rentals on other Web sites and to book an apartment in the 6th.

"For years I'd been wondering what was inside those fabulous 16-foot-high doors you see throughout Europe," said Richard.

On arrival, the Appleyards were presented with the key to just such a door in a former convent, around a corner from the River Seine. It opened onto a flower-filled courtyard, the view from their bedroom. The kitchen was fully equipped, phone and Internet service were free, and the Louvre art museum was an easy walk, all for about $159 per night.

If You Go

Our French Farm was found at www.frenchconnection.co.uk.

Others in the area are listed under Poitou-Chrante at www.gites-de-france.com/, an umbrella listing for carefully rated rentals throughout France. Or try googling the specific region you are interested in.

A search for "vacation rentals and Paris" on the Web brings up plenty of options. For apartments in Paris, try www.apartment-living.com.

For general information about visiting France, begin with the official French Government Tourist Office site, http://us.franceguide.com/.

For more travel features, visit www.wickedlocal.com/getaway.

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